The Vanishing Island (19 page)

“Have we sprung a leak?” asked Mr. Richter, his feet sloshing in water.

The admiral bent down and put his finger to the liquid, then to his lips. “Not just water,” he said. “Spirits, too.”

They came to the wall of taps connected to barrels of water, beer, and jenever. Every spigot was turned on, and every barrel was empty. And lying in a heap was the purser, his head twisted at an unnatural angle.

“He's dead,” said Mr. Leiden, kneeling beside him. “Broken neck.”

“Is anything left?” asked Mr. Richter, still staring at the empty taps.

The admiral shook his head. In the brief silence of astonishment, they heard something . . . a low growl . . . something moving in the darkness.

“Is there a monster on board?” whispered Mr. van Decken.

“I'm afraid there is,” said the admiral, and he swung both his lamp and his pistol around toward a ransacked pile of supplies, where Otto sat hunched, smeared with blood and grease, eating what looked like a wharf rat.

“What in the name of all that's holy,” said Mr. Richter, struggling to stand on his businessman's legs.

“Not holy,” said the admiral. “It's the Hunger.”

“There's no such thing,” said Mr. Leiden, his voice trembling. “Old Dutch folklore.”

The admiral didn't take his eyes off Otto. “Perhaps it's not in your medical journals, Mr. Leiden. But do you not believe your own eyes?”

Otto crouched there, chewing remorselessly while he eyed the search party. His ropy muscles stood out against his wasting body, but his stomach was bloated to an unnatural size. Whatever was in him had devoured his humanity as well. He was little more than a beast. And he was cornered.

“Bren, go up and lock the hatch,” said the admiral. “We can't let him loose again.”

“I'll do it!” said Mr. Richter, and moving apace he was up the ladder, out of the hold, and the hatch was snapped shut.

“Well then,” said the admiral. “We shall have to proceed without the courageous Mr. Richter. Mr. van Decken . . .”

Before he could finish, Otto charged through the debris like a wild boar. The admiral fired his pistol, and Bren could have sworn it hit Otto squarely in the chest, but on he came, scattering the men and sending their lanterns flying. Two of the lights went out, and in the near-darkness, Bren watched as Otto brutally attacked Mr. Leiden. The admiral, Sean, and Mr. van Decken grabbed him from
behind, but Otto threw them off.

Then, to Bren's horror, Mouse appeared out of nowhere, carrying the small hammer Otto had used to kill Cook.

“No!” Bren cried, but Mouse charged at Otto, striking him in the back with the claw end, between the shoulder blades. Otto howled as the tines sank into his flesh; he turned on Mouse, yanking the hammer free and raising it over his head.

Bren rushed toward Otto and grabbed the madman's arm with both hands, determined not to let him use the hammer on Mouse. Otto took his free hand and grabbed both of Bren's wrists, easily pulling them off his own arm. He flung Bren away against a pile of ripped-open sacks, and then slowly came toward Bren with the hammer cocked.

Bren shrank back against the burst sacks, and in the moment before Otto reached him he remembered he still wore the paiza. If he let Otto attack him, would he disappear like the thief in the alley? Bren shut his eyes tight, and when he did, he heard the hammer clatter to the floor. He quickly opened his eyes, praying that Otto would no longer be there, but what he saw instead was the admiral, who had come up behind Otto and flung a piece of rope around his neck.

Otto snarled and spit as the rope pressed against his windpipe, but he managed to work his fingers between
his neck and the noose, and once he had a good grip he snapped the rope in two as if it were a string.

Bren noticed the third lantern, which had rolled onto its side but still flickered. It was lying in a mixture of water and spirits, and suddenly the flame and alcohol joined and ignited. A low, blue fire began to spread.

“Admiral!” said Bren, but the admiral didn't answer, rolling to his side and trying to gain his feet again. Mouse was trying to put out the growing fire. The other men, all hurt or wounded, were grappling with Otto again, hopelessly fighting a man who had the strength of an ape.

“Admiral!” Bren called again, but to his disbelief, the admiral was crawling on his hands and knees,
away
from the fight. A moment later he had disappeared into the darkness and smoke, into the back of the hold.

“Bren, help!” cried Mouse, and Bren forced himself to ignore the retreating admiral and help Mouse try to put out the fire. But what difference did it make? They were all dead anyway. If the ship burned, maybe Otto would die, too.

And then, something emerged from the back of the hold. It was a walking shadow, in the shape of a man, and when it crossed through the jumping wall of flames Bren was stunned to see that it was the admiral . . . or at least, it looked like the admiral. A tall man, with a beard
and golden hair, striding toward Otto. But when he came closer, in the bright light of the fire, Bren could see that he, or it, didn't look quite human. Its skin was brownish grey, and the hair and beard looked more like spun wheat. He seemed to walk without moving his legs. The blue eyes sparkled, but like gemstones: lifeless.

Otto saw it, too, and turned on him, grabbing the admiral by the throat and squeezing with all his might. As Bren watched, Otto squeezed harder and harder, until it seemed he would tear the admiral's head from his body, when suddenly the admiral's head began to disintegrate into mud and straw in Otto's hands.

“Bren, we need you!” said Sean, who despite his wounds had rushed to the wash-pump to draw up seawater. He and the others were trying to douse the flames.

But Bren couldn't look away, and he watched as a stunned Otto, confused and frightened, leaped toward the admiral, clutching his headless body like a bear, and then there was a howl of pain the likes of which Bren had never heard. He assumed it was the admiral dying.

“Bren!”

It was Mouse this time, and Bren snapped out of it long enough to help them smother the fire with water, blankets, and canvas. Nearly choking on smoke, they finally put down the flames, and the effort and lack of air caused Bren to sink to his knees, on the verge of passing out.

As the smoke slowly cleared, they could see Otto, his back to them, hovering before them like a specter. Bren recoiled in fear, until he saw that Otto wasn't hovering, he was hung. Sticking through his back was the sharp, curved end of a meat hook, and his lifeless feet dangled over a pile of straw and clay.

B
ren suggested they commit Mr. Tybert's body to the sea at the back of the poop deck, where he spent so much of his time. He also fetched the navigator's hammock for his burial, and while he was there, he opened Mr. Tybert's locker and found the old Jacob's staff he had once mentioned—his first instrument on his very first ship.

Bren handed the Jacob's staff to the man sewing the hammock around the body. “To help him find his way,” he said, trying to steady his voice.

The admiral said a few kind words, and then they
tipped the body over the side. Cook, the purser, Otto, and Mr. Tybert, all in one day. Bren hoped he would never have to hear the mournful sound of canvas sliding against rough wood ever again.

No one wanted to talk about what had happened. Sean and Mr. van Decken returned to their duties immediately, despite their injuries, as did Mr. Leiden and Mouse. It was as if talking about what had happened to Otto would mean admitting it was something more than a nightmare, something real that could happen again.

But Bren couldn't let go of what he'd witnessed. First the paiza, then Mouse and her strange story and supposed ability to talk to animals. And now this—except Bren wasn't even sure what
this
was. Otto had become . . .
possessed
was the only word Bren could think to describe it. And yet the admiral, or someone or something that looked very much like him, had summoned the power to kill him.

Bren kept hearing Mr. Leiden say there was no such thing as “the Hunger,” and the admiral countering that he had only to believe his own eyes. Well, Bren didn't believe in magic, but the list of things that confounded his own eyesight was getting longer. Had others seen what he had? Not just this time, but other times as well? Were there other reasons the men thought the admiral was in league with the Devil?

And of course, there were Mr. Tybert's doubts about
the mission itself. Doubts echoed by the rest of the crew.

Sean said the admiral had always shown an interest in Eastern magic, and there were those other books in his trunk that he didn't want Bren to see. . . .

Bren decided it was time he saw them.

He waited until that evening, when the admiral was on duty above, and then he fetched Mouse and led her to the door of the admiral's personal cabin. He could see the doubt on her face.

“You mean this is the one place you've never snuck into?”

She shook her head firmly. “Not in there.”

“This is important, Mouse. Do you trust me?”

She nodded, and Bren put his ear to the door to make sure it was empty. Mouse picked the lock and they entered the small room, dark except for the pale-blue squares of moonlight that checkered the floor.

“Under here,” said Bren, crouching next to the admiral's cot.

Mouse opened the locker, and Bren began pulling out books and scanning the titles:
The Bamboo Chronicles
,
Records of the Grand Historian
, something called
Lüshi Chunqiu
.

“Mr. Black would kill for these,” said Bren.

“What's this?” said Mouse. Several loose sheets of
parchment had fallen out of one of the books. They were filled with cramped writing, and on the top one, written in Dutch, was a foreword of sorts:
From a letter, in the authentic hand of the wayfarer Marco Polo, written from prison but never published, and discovered only in the dead man's effects.

Bren laid it flat on the floor in a square of light, and they began to read.

The bulk of my travels I have dictated to my cellmate, one Rustichello da Pisa, a romance writer who promises to publish my account if I am unable to. The content of this letter I have withheld from him, but I feel I must purge my soul through confession, for God's eyes if no one else's.

Our journey of twenty years may seem excessive to some, but I assure you, had the Great Khan had his way, we would never have returned home. Our travels were initially commercial in nature—my father and uncle and I being dealers in silk, gems, and spices. But while my father and uncle mostly remained in Xanadu, I became an emissary of sorts for the Khan, conveying messages to various parts of his kingdom, and also collecting tribute from those he governed. It gave me the chance to travel the full extent of the greatest empire known to man.

Sending a foreigner on these missions required special consideration, however. The Silk Road wound
through nests of robbers and vipers, and there were mountains and deserts where even native travelers feared to go. The Great Khan provided me with a small gold coin, a paiza, the Mongols called it, inscribed with a warning to any and all who might molest me. I was very grateful for this imperial passport, for its words were obeyed by all. It seemed the savagery of Mongol justice was known far and wide.

After many years on the road, Kublai Khan summoned me back to Xanadu and announced that he had an important new mission for me.

And what a strange mission it was! For the next seven years I visited a region called Longmen—the Dragon's Gate—supposedly on the business of the empire, to collect taxes or appoint an official, but my real mission was to observe a child recently born there, a girl named Sun. I pretended the Great Khan took an interest in all the heirs to his empire, and was received into her family's home with utmost courtesy, but upon seeing the child for the first time, I received a shock, for she had apparently been born with only one eye.

I watched her grow into a young girl during those years, and never observed anything unusual about her, until her tenth birthday. An old man came to the village and presented her with an extraordinary gift: a false eye, made of a rare and precious form of jade that was milky
white, like a pearl. With the skill of a healer he set the jade eye in the empty socket, although to my mind it was only scarcely less unnerving to see the solid white eye there, like she was half a ghost.

When I reported this to the Great Khan, it marked the beginning of the end for me. He told me he would finally grant my family leave to return home, on one condition: I was to take this girl from her family to a secret island in the India Sea, and leave her there to die.

I was appalled, and demanded an explanation for this madness, and Kublai Khan, evidently convinced of my trustworthiness after my long years of service, finally obliged me. He explained that before the first empire, there had been an ancient people in China who practiced powerful magic, but whose existence had been erased from history. The Shang they were called, and one of the Khan's star readers had recited for him a prophecy that a Shang heir would be born—a sorceress—to overthrow the Imperials and restore the Ancients. And though he didn't explain it to me in full, the gift of the jade eye was the sign for him that Sun was that heir.

The mission on which he sent me I have dictated to my cellmate exactly as the Khan would have had it, that we were dispatched from the empire to take a young princess to Persia as a bride for the sultan, along with ships filled with gold and jewels. This was communicated
along the Mongol post system, so that the sultan would be expecting us. However, the girl was never to arrive. I would give the sad news to the sultan, that we had sailed through a terrible storm, and that most of our fleet, and the princess, had been lost. In this way I was to gain my freedom to return home.

So committed to this insane plan was the emperor that he actually sent three ships—decoys—to be sunk in the North Indian Sea to support his alibi. I could give you nearly the exact coordinates where today you could find this sacrificial ghost fleet.

On the first day of October, in the year of our Lord 1292, we traveled overland to the City of Lions, on the northeast coast of the Indian Sea. There my father and uncle, and the rest of our caravan, went one way and I another. The girl and I embarked on a small ship for the south, and never having traveled any distance by boat before, I spent the first days of the voyage green with sickness. To my great shame, the ten-year-old girl attended to me, soaking my brow in cold water and feeding me a broth made of the chamomile flower. I shall never forget the way she looked at me. The jade eye seemed as filled with sadness as the other.

The entirety of our crew on this small ship was myself, the girl, the pilot, and a man who carried with him a map he showed to no one except the pilot. This
man was fearsome both in build and in countenance, covered neck-to-feet in a black, red-trimmed robe, with long black whiskers like a catfish.

On our thirty-eighth day at sea, without ever having sighted another boat nor land, we came in view of a vaporous mountain on the horizon, as if an island itself had been carved out of mist, a fortress of clouds. Hazy white cliffs towered above us, and we steered our ship into a cove of fog.

I watched the menacing man in black step out of the craft, and as he did so the white vapor solidified under his foot, and his map turned to ash in his hands, never to be used again.

We spent two days on this lush island, so abundant with fruit, water, and wildlife that I held out some hope the girl would be able to survive on her own. Nevertheless, I promised myself I would return for her as soon as I could, and I made myself a map, etched into the back of my paiza, which still hung around my neck.

On the day we were to depart, the fearsome man informed me he would be staying behind with the girl, and I assumed it was to kill her. This was the Khan's way of washing the blood from his own hands. Strangely I never had to tell the girl she was not coming with us. It was as if she sensed her fate.

The voyage to the Arabian Sea was a treacherous
one, and the Khan's story of being lost in a storm nearly came true. I met up with my father and uncle outside the Gulf of Arabia; the sultan believed our account and accepted it with good grace. I was even invited to the great library at Baghdad, the House of Wisdom, to recount my travels to the masters there.

But leaving Persia we were set upon by robbers, arriving in Italy with only the gems we had sewn into the linings of our coats, including my paiza. In Venice, a jeweler friend helped me disguise my map in the form of a magic mirror, a trick I had learned on my travels. But I realized, even before war broke out, that I would likely never have fortune enough to return for the girl.

“Mouse, are you seeing this?” said Bren.

But Mouse was no longer at his side. Bren had become so accustomed to the creaks and groans of the ship's timbers that he hadn't heard the cabin door open or the heavy footsteps approaching.

“That's one of the things I like about you, Bren,” said the admiral. “Your appreciation for good books.”

Bren jerked his head around to see the admiral hovering over him, a lantern in his hand, his blue eyes gone black in the shadows.